This may at first sound like nitpicking, but please hear me out.  This intersection is a serious thorn in my shoe.  A nail in my side.  A slug in my hair.  It sucks.

It all started one hot August afternoon in early October, when I found myself in the air-conditioned splendor of the Cap & Cork liquor store on Hillhurst and Prospect.  I remember being moved to purchase some Pliny the Elder, the most delectable of Russian River brewery’s cask-conditioned beers.   After paying the salesclerk, and exchanging pleasantries as to the state of the weather, I entered the confines of my car, which was already similar in temperature to a pre-heated convection oven.  As is typically my wont when my driving route necessitates taking the 5 freeway from a starting point in Los Feliz, I drove east on Franklin until the road made a turn and became St. George (I find this route to be far superior to taking lowly Los Feliz boulevard, which is usually full to bursting with belching, sweating automobilery).   St. George took me pleasantly around a corner until it intersected with Tracy street, at which point a traffic light mocked me with its insoucient redness.

It occurred to me as I sat awaiting the smug light’s conversion to liberating green that this was not the first time I had encountered this maddening flippance from this selfsame traffic light! In fact, I reflected, every time I had ever taken this secret route, this quintessence of malefaction, this devil of all traffic lights, has never been begreened upon my approach!  Much to the contrary, it taunts me with a promise of verdance until I am just far enough away that I cannot possibly speed through as its glaring eye transitions from green to red.  What’s more, there is never a conveyance approaching on a perpendicular path which would require that the light change to accomodate it at the expense of my expedience.  I have never, in all my blighted days, seen a vehicle of any description driving on Tracy street–yet this malicious traffic light seeks only to bar my route, whenever I approach it.

Something must be done… For the sake of myself and my country.

In the distance, a dog barks.

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